The invention pertains to an enclosure-collating device, in particular for mail-processing installations, having an enclosure-forwarding device, which exhibits endless, driven, circulating conveying chains or conveying belts that are provided with conveying fingers that project beyond the surface of a collating path in the region of the top chain or belt strands and, in pairs, define enclosure-conveying compartments located in front of them as seen in the conveying direction. In the case of known enclosure-collating devices, enclosure-feeding devices are located alongside the collating path over the course of said collating path, and serve for introducing individual documents into the enclosure-conveying compartments that are being conveyed past.
This known design of enclosure-collating devices provides that the enclosure-conveying arrangement is driven intermittently in such a way that conveying-finger pairs that define an enclosure-conveying compartment located in front of them are stopped immediately before the introduction region of an enclosure-feeding device and then the enclosure-feeding device is started in order to insert or dispense an enclosure into an enclosure-conveying compartment perpendicularly to the conveying direction of the enclosure-conveying arrangement.
If one wants to drive the enclosure-conveying arrangement continuously in order to increase the operating speed of the enclosure-collating devices, then, in combination with such a continuously driven enclosure-conveying device, special forms of enclosure-feeding devices are required that discharge or insert enclosures into the enclosure-conveying compartments from above.
If conventional enclosure-feeding devices of the type briefly described above, which feed enclosures into the conveying compartments from the side and perpendicular to the conveying direction of the enclosure-conveying arrangement, are to be used in combination with continuously driven enclosure-conveying arrangements, then these conveying compartments must be dimensioned very large in the conveying direction of the enclosure-conveying arrangement, which requires a large spacing of the enclosure-conveying compartments along the enclosure-conveying direction, and the advantage of a continuous driving of the enclosure-conveying arrangement in the sense of an increase in operating speed is largely negated. This is due to the fact that in addition to the format of the enclosure to be inserted, an enclosure-conveying compartment that is to be filled during its continuous movement must be made larger by at least one segment, in the conveying direction of the enclosure-conveying arrangement, which corresponds to the time of the complete insertion of an enclosure by the enclosure-feeding device transversely to the conveying direction of the enclosure-conveying arrangement, multiplied by the conveying speed of the enclosure-conveying arrangement.